With so many teams expressing interest — the Orioles, Twins and Diamondbacks among them — it seemed likely that Inge would take his time and carefully consider all his options. But the 11-11 Athletics can offer regular looks at third base, where they’ve shuffled through Eric Sogard, Josh Donaldson and now Luke Hughes since losing Scott Sizemore to season-ending knee surgery. And that immediate availability of playing time clearly (and, well, quickly) appealed to the 34-year-old veteran most.

Inge was batting .100 with a .400 OPS in 20 plate appearances for Detroit. He’s a .264/.340/.458 career hitter against left-handed pitchers and has 140 career home runs. He can be useful in a hot-corner platoon.

“He can be useful?” Wrong. The Tigers have given this guy very opportunity to be useful and he has failed time and time again. He needs to retire. Dumpster diving for third basemen is a perfect description for what the A’s are doing. Dombrowski gave this every opportunity (to a fault).

I love how the A’s gave the 3B job to Josh Donaldson in Spring Training after Sizemore went down, talked him up all spring long, then gave him a whopping 8 games during the regular season to get comfortable and figure things out.

What the A’s are doing drives me nuts. They don’t have the talent to win now, yet they REFUSE to let any of their kids in the system take any major league at bats away from immense talents like Coco Crisp, Seth Smith, Jonny Gomes or Daric Barton.

Meanwhile, Michael Taylor is hitting .347/.547/.938 in Sacramento, with his teammates commenting on how even his outs are loud smashes all over the field.